^ On
a 02 May:2007 The US Commission
on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) publishes its annual report,
which recommends that the following nations be included in the State Department's
list "countries of particular concern" (CPC) where authorities systematically
violate religious freedom: Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan,
China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The report
also lists countries which commit serious, though less extreme, violations:
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iraq.
—(070508)2006Silvio
Berlusconi [29 Sep 1936~] resigns as prime minister of Italy. He had
been refusing to admit that his coalition had been narrowly defeated by
that of Romano
Prodi [09 Aug 1939~] in the parliamentary
election of 09 and 10 April 2006. —(060502)2003
Before the New York stock markets open, Stemcells Inc (STEM) report that,
at the 10th Annual Conference of the American Society of Neural Transplantation
and Repair today, Dr. Aileen J. Anderson and Dr. Brian J. Cummings, of the
Reeve-Irvine Center at the University of California, Irvine, will present
promising results of a pre-clinical study that examined the STEM's human
neural stem cell (hCNS-SC) technology as a potential means of regenerating
damaged nerve and nerve fibers in patients with spinal cord injuries. On
the NASDAQ, 20 million of the 27 million STEM sharesare traded, surging
from their previous $0.74 close to an intraday high of $2.25 and closing
at $2.75. They had traded as low as $0.49 recently.2002
Catholic priest Father Paul R. Shanley [25 Jan 1931–], is arrested
in the morning in San Diego on three counts of rape of a child. Gregory
Ford, now 24, says that he was raped between 1983 and 1990 by Shanley, then
pastor of Saint-John-the-Evangelist in Newton, Middlesex {no kidding}
county, Massachusetts, in the Boston archdiocese, whom Gregory, and his
parents Paula and Rodney, are suing as well as Cardinal Bernard Law for
negligence. The archdiocese released in April 2002 more than 800 pages of
documents showing that it knew of Shanley's attendance at a 1979 meeting
in Boston at which the North American Man Boy Love Association
was apparently created. The records include Shanley's own writings on his
life as a street priest (from ordination in 1960 to 1979), who frequently
visited clinics for treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Despite
receiving dozens of allegations of abuse, the Boston archdiocese did not
warn the San Bernardino Diocese when Shanley moved there in 1990. There,
while serving as a pastor part-time, he also owned a hotel that catered
to homosexuals in Palm Springs, California. On 15 February 2005, Shanley
would be sentenced
to 12 to 15 years in prison. [photo: Shanley as San Diego police
volunteer (he was dismissed when his past became known) >]

^2002 German plans to invade
the US. The weekly newspaper
Die Zeit publishes details from documents which it uncovered in
Germany's official military archives in Freiburg. They show that Germany
under Kaiser Wilhelm had drawn up detailed plans in 1900 for an invasion
of the United States centered on attacks on New York City and Boston.
One plan foresaw a force of 100'000 soldiers
transported across the Atlantic on 60 ships. Beginning in 1897, a German
navy lieutenant named Eberhard von Mantey was assigned the task of preparing
an invasion of the United States after German and US interests had collided
in the Pacific. Wilhelm II wanted colonies and military bases around the
world. The United States was increasingly getting in the Kaiser's way.Von
Mantey's aim was to find a way to force the United States to sign a treaty
giving Germany free reign in the Pacific and Atlantic.
He rejected ideas of a naval blockade or a naval battle and made plans for
an invasion of the northeast instead, which he considered to be the core
of America and where the United States could be most effectively hit and
most easily forced to sign a peace treaty. He had a low opinion of the morale
and discipline of US soldiers. The plans were reworked and revised over
the next decade. Chief of staff Alfred von Schlieffen, who planned Germany's
invasion of France in World War One, was skeptical about the idea of attacking
the United States, 3000 sea miles away. But his loyalty to the Kaiser prevented
him from rejecting the war planning outright. At one point the German chief
of staff had a plan to bombard New York City, thinking that the greatest
panic would break out in New York over fears of a bombardment.

^2001 One hundred million
Harry Potter books sold. 100'000'000
copies of J. K. Rowling's four Harry Potter children's books have been sold
since the first one in 1995, including translations into 42 languages, her
agent announces. The best-selling books of all time are The Bible with an
estimated [how?] 6 billion copies sold, followed by Quotations from
the Works of Mao Tse-Tung (the "Little Red Book") with approximate
sales of 900 million.Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer's Stone tells about Harry, whose parents die when
he is little. He is sent to live with his aunt, uncle, and spoiled cousin
Dudley, who treat him very badly. Dudley has 2 rooms, every toy you could
imagine, and has the most posh clothes, while Harry sleeps in the broom
closet, has no toys but Dudley's broken ones (if he's lucky), and gets Dudley's
hand me down clothes. But strange things are always happening to him and
his uncle and aunt get very mad when they do.
Then one day a letter arrives for Harry, before he can open it, his uncle
takes it away. More letters keep arriving, but they're always taken away
before he gets to read them. Suddenly his uncle and aunt announce a surprise
holiday (to get away from all the letters). While they're out on a boat,
a giant, Hagrid, appears on board. He then tells Harry that, unlike what
his uncle and aunt have been telling him, his parents were wizards, who,
when Harry was a baby, were killed by the evil wizard Voldermort. Voldermort
tried to kill Harry too but Harry survived and Voldermort lost all his powers
and ran away. Hagrid adds that Harry is also a wizard and would be attending
Hogwart's a wizardry school. Harry'
adventures at the school are narrated in the sequels Harry Potter and
the ... ...Chamber of Secrets, ...Prisoner of Azkaban, ...Goblet of Fire.
Rawlings also wrote two short paperback textbooks used by Harry Potter:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander and Quidditch
Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp. (Quidditch is a competitive
sport played at wizardry schools, central to Goblet of Fire)

^2001 Cheapskate Suicide
Prevention Report.
A National
Strategy for Suicide Prevention Goals and Objectives for Action
report is published as a joint effort of the US Health Resources and Services
Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes
of Health, and Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration.
The report is full of facts and recommendations for others to follow, but
shines by the absence of proposals for federally funded programs. This is
a cheap way for the Surgeon General, who presents the report, to take political
credit if suicides decrease, and to blame others if they don't Suicide
is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, killing 30'000
people each year. But that is less than 5% of the over 650'000 attempts.
The document suggests creating a uniform way that hospitals and police can
report suicide deaths and injuries. But health
insurance plans do not adequately cover mental illnesses. The
report has 68 goals for 2005, voluntary on the part of states, local agencies
and anyone else. Among the recommendations are:
- Adding more suicide-prevention programs in schools, college, jails, and
in the workplace.
- Increasing the number of states that require health insurance plans to
cover mental health and substance abuse on the level that physical illnesses
are covered.
- Encouraging doctors and nurses to ask at-risk patients about the presence
of firearms, drugs and other lethal weapons in their homes.
- Using public service announcements like those concerning car seats, smoking,
and the dangers of drinking while pregnant.

2001 Hermenergildo Rojas, 100, is arrested in Miami
for pouring gasoline on his lover, Janet Ali, 38, and threatening to set
her on fire, in a jealous rage.2000 An investigating
panel concludes that Texas A&M University students cut corners in construction
and school officials failed to adequately supervise them before a bonfire
collapse in November 1999 that killed 12 people.1997
Tony Blair, 44, becomes Great Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years.1997 As the result of an antitrust suit, IBM and the Justice
Department agree to phase out a 1956 agreement that had limited the ways
IBM could sell and service mainframe and minicomputers. A federal judge
ended the decree because IBM's enormous power in the computer market had
"substantially diminished." In 1996, restrictions on IBM's personal computer,
workstation, and computer services business had also been removed.1997 A proposal to create seven new top-level WWW domain
names is signed in Geneva. The proposal recommended the appointment of twenty-eight
different registrars to dole out names, replacing Network Solutions as the
single assigning agency.1996 The US Senate passes,
97-3, an immigration bill to tighten border controls, make it tougher for
illegal aliens to get US jobs and curtail legal immigrants' access to social
services.1994, Nelson Mandela claims victory in
the wake of South Africa's first democratic elections; President F.W. de
Klerk acknowledges defeat.1991: US, British, French
and Dutch forces penetrate 80 km deeper into northern Iraq.1991
In his ninth encyclical, Pope John Paul II acknowledged the success of capitalism,
but denounced the system for sometimes achieving results at the expense
of the poor and of morality.1981 Radio Shack re-releases
Model III TRS-DOS 1.3, now with 2 fixes 1979 Vivekananda
begins nonstop ride, cycling 187 hrs, 28 min., around Vihara Maha Devi Park,
Columbia, Sri Lanka.1974 Former US Vice President
Spiro T. Agnew is disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals.

^1970 Joint forces
continue attack into Cambodia.
American and South Vietnamese forces continue the attack into Cambodia
that began on 29 April. This limited "incursion" into Cambodia
(as it was described by Richard Nixon) included 13 major ground operations
to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 30 km inside the Cambodian border.
Some 50'000 South Vietnamese and 30'000 US soldiers were involved,
making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction
City in 1967. The operation began on 29 April with South Vietnamese
forces moving into what was known as the "Parrot's Beak," the area
of Cambodia that projects into South Vietnam above the Mekong Delta.
During the first two days of the operation,
an 8000-man South Vietnamese task force, including elements of two
infantry divisions plus four ranger battalions and four armored cavalry
squadrons, killed 84 communist soldiers while suffering 16 dead and
157 wounded. The second stage of the campaign began on 02 May
with a series of joint US-South Vietnamese operations aimed at clearing
communist sanctuaries located in the densely vegetated "Fishhook"
area of Cambodia (across the border from South Vietnam, 110 km from
Saigon). The US 1st Cavalry Division and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment,
along with the South Vietnamese 3rd Airborne Brigade, killed 3190
communists in the action and captured massive amounts of war materiel,
including 2000 individual and crew-served weapons, 300 trucks, and
40 tons of foodstuffs. By the
time all US ground forces departed Cambodia on 30 June, the Allied
forces had discovered and captured or destroyed 10 times more enemy
supplies and equipment than they had captured inside South Vietnam
during the entire previous year. Many intelligence analysts at the
time believed that the Cambodian incursion dealt a stunning blow to
the communists, driving main force units away from the border and
damaging their morale, and in the process buying as much as a year
for South Vietnam's survival.
However, the incursion gave the antiwar movement in the United States
a new rallying point. News of the operation set off a wave of antiwar
demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted
in the deaths of four students at the hands of Army National Guard
troops. Another protest at Jackson State in Mississippi resulted in
the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women's
dormitory. The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that
Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in
a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives
that would thenceforth severely limit the executive power of the president.

1970 Student anti-Vietnam-war protesters at Ohio's Kent
State University burn down the campus ROTC building. The National Guard
takes control of the campus.

1968 Israeli television begins transmitting [making
obsolete the joke: Israeli customs official examines belongings of American
immigrant, spots a TV receiver, exclaims: But we don't have television
in Israel!  I know, replies the American, that's
why I'm bringing my own.]. 1968 Gold
reaches then-record high ($39.35 per ounce) in London1965,
the Early Bird satellite was used to transmit television pictures across
the Atlantic.1964 An explosion of a charge assumed
to have been placed by Viet Cong terrorists sinks the USNS Card
at its dock in Saigon. No one was injured and the ship was eventually raised
and repaired. The Card, an escort carrier being used as an aircraft
and helicopter ferry, had arrived in Saigon on 30 April.1956
The General Conference of the Methodist Church, held in Minneapolis,
demanded abolishment of racial segregation in all Methodist churches. 1952 first commercial jet plane, BOAC Comet.1946
Prisoners revolted at California's Alcatraz prison.

^
1945 Soviet Flag is raised over
the German Chancellery.
After four days of bitter house-to-house fighting, the first Soviet
troops reached the German chancellery, the symbolic center of Nazi
Germany, and raised the Soviet flag over the artillery-ravaged building.
Inside the chancellery lay the charred corpses of Nazi leaders Joseph
Goebbels and General Hans Krebs, and in a nearby crater, the probable
remains of Adolf Hitler, who committed suicide in his bunker under
the chancellery on 30 April.
The fall of Berlin marked the triumphant end of the massive Soviet
counter-offensive that was launched out of the rubble of Stalingrad
two-and-a-half years before. The Red Army launched its final drive
on Berlin on 16 April, and by 21 April, a few advance Soviet tank
units were in the eastern suburbs of the city. Four days later, the
two main Soviet armies  the First White Russian and the First
Ukrainian  had converged, and the German capital was completely
encircled. By 28 April, Berlin
was defended by only 30'000 soldiers, but the Germans put up a fanatical
resistance of their capital against the Russian invaders. However,
they were no match for the overwhelming numbers of Soviet troops with
their endless tanks, artillery, and planes, and Hitler and other key
Nazi leaders were trapped. With the Soviets only a few blocks from
the chancellery, these leaders committed suicide; their dreams of
a thousand-year Third Reich ended in ruin after only eleven years.
On 02 May, Berlin surrendered to the
Soviets, and five days later German General Alfred Jodl signed the
unconditional surrender of all German forces on all fronts, ending
World War II in Europe.

1945
German troops in Italy and parts of Austria surrender to the Allies,
while Berlin surrenders to Russia's Zhukov.
^top^
Approximately 1 million German soldiers lay down their arms as the
terms of the German unconditional surrender, signed at Caserta on
29 April, come into effect. Many Germans surrender to Japanese soldiers-Japanese
Americans. Among the American tank crews that entered the northern
Italian town of Biella was an all-Nisei (second-generation) infantry
battalion, composed of Japanese Americans from Hawaii. Early that
same day, Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov accepts the surrender of
the German capital. The Red Army takes 134'000 German soldiers prisoner.

1941 The Federal Communications Commission grants the first
commercial television licenses to ten stations, authorizing the stations
to start broadcasting on July 1 of the same year. The first license was
issued to NBC, which began broadcasting from the Empire State Building on
Channel 1.1941 Fighting breaks out between British
forces in Iraq and that country’s pro-German faction.1968 Pompidou
part pour l'Iran, alors que des étudiants révolutionnaires menés par Cohn-Bendit
provoquent de nouveaux incidents à l'université de Nanterre. A son
retour le 11 May, Pompidou aura a faire face à une situation très
aggravée par les confrontations violentes entre étudiants
et police, qui se seront étendues au Quartier Latin.1933
Germany forbids trade unions.

^1933 Loch Ness
Monster allegedly seen.
Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland's Loch Ness date
back 1500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when
a sighting makes local news on 02 May 1933. The newspaper Inverness
Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen
"an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface." The story of the
"monster" (the word chosen by the Courier editor) became a media
phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and
a circus offering a £20'000 reward for capture of the beast. Loch Ness,
located in the Scottish Highlands, has the largest volume of fresh water
in Great Britain; the body of water reaches a depth of more than 200 meters
and a length of about 37 km. Scholars of the Loch Ness Monster find a dozen
references to "Nessie" in Scottish history, dating back to around A.D. 500,
when local Picts carved a strange aquatic creature into standing stones
near Loch Ness. The earliest written reference to a monster in Loch Ness
is a 7th-century biography of Saint Columba, the Irish missionary who introduced
Christianity to Scotland. In 565, according to the biographer, Columba was
on his way to visit the king of the northern Picts near Inverness when he
stopped at Loch Ness to confront a beast that had been killing people in
the lake. Seeing a large beast about to attack another man, Columba intervened,
invoking the name of God and commanding the creature to "go back with all
speed." The monster retreated and never killed another man.
In 1933, a new road was completed along Loch Ness' shore, affording drivers
a clear view of the loch. After an April 1933 sighting was reported in the
local paper on 02 May, interest steadily grew, especially after another
couple claimed to have seen the beast on land, crossing the shore road.
Several British newspapers sent reporters to Scotland, including London's
Daily Mail, which hired big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell to
capture the beast. After a few days searching the loch, Wetherell reported
finding footprints of a large four-legged animal. In response, the Daily
Mail carried the dramatic headline: "MONSTER OF LOCH NESS IS NOT LEGEND
BUT A FACT." Scores of tourists descended on Loch Ness and sat in boats
or decks chairs waiting for an appearance by the beast. Plaster casts of
the footprints were sent to the British Natural History Museum, which reported
that the tracks were that of a hippopotamus, specifically one hippopotamus
foot, probably stuffed. The hoax temporarily deflated Loch Ness Monster
mania, but stories of sightings continued.
A famous 1934 photograph seemed to show a dinosaur-like creature with a
long neck emerging out of the murky waters, leading some to speculate that
"Nessie" was a solitary survivor of the long-extinct plesiosaurs. The aquatic
plesiosaurs were thought to have died off with the rest of the dinosaurs
65 million years ago. Loch Ness was frozen solid during the recent ice ages,
however, so this creature would have had to have made its way up the River
Ness from the sea in the past 10'000 years. And the plesiosaurs, believed
to be cold-blooded, would not long survive in the frigid waters of Loch
Ness. More likely, others suggested, it was an archeocyte, a primitive whale
with a serpentine neck that is thought to have been extinct for 18 million
years. Skeptics argued that what people were seeing in Loch Ness were "seiches"
 oscillations in the water surface caused by the inflow of cold river
water into the slightly warmer loch. Amateur investigators kept an almost
constant vigil, and in the 1960s several British universities launched expeditions
to Loch Ness, using sonar to search the deep. Nothing conclusive was found,
but in each expedition the sonar operators detected large, moving underwater
objects they could not explain. In 1975, Boston's Academy of Applied Science
combined sonar and underwater photography in an expedition to Loch Ness.
A photo resulted that, after enhancement, appeared to show the giant flipper
of a plesiosaur-like creature. Further sonar expeditions in the 1980s and
1990s resulted in more tantalizing, if inconclusive, readings. Revelations
in 1994 that the famous 1934 photo was a hoax hardly dampened the enthusiasm
of tourists and professional and amateur investigators to the legend of
the Loch Ness Monster.

1926 The first drawing to be faxed successfully across
the Atlantic Ocean is transmitted. The fax, a sketch of Ambassador Alanson
Bigelow Houghton by Augustus John, was sent from London to The New York
Times offices in New York. The transmission took about an hour.1926 US Marines land in Nicaragua to put down a revolt
and to protect US interests. They would not depart until 1933.
1919 First US air passenger service starts.

^1918 GM buys Chevrolet.
The General Motors Corporation acquires
the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware. The deal was effectively
a merger engineered by William Durant. The original founder of GM,
Durant had been forced out of the company by stockholders who had
disapproved of Durant's increasingly reckless expansionist policies
a few years earlier. Durant started Chevrolet with Swiss racer Louis
Chevrolet and managed to make the company a successful competitor
in the economy car market in a relatively short period of time. Still
the owner of a considerable portion of GM stock, Durant began to purchase
more stock in GM as his profits from Chevrolet allowed. In a final
move to regain control of the company he founded, Durant offered GM
stockholders five shares of Chevrolet stock for every one share of
GM stock. Though GM stock prices were exorbitantly high, the market
interest in Chevrolet made the five-for-one trade irresistible to
GM shareholders. With the sale, Durant regained control of GM.

1916 At his court-martial, Easter
Rising leader Padraig Pearse declares to the British: "You cannot conquer
Ireland. You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed
has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by
a better deed." He would be executed by firing squad the next day. 1890 Territory of Oklahoma is created.
1885 Congo Free State established by King Leopold II of Belgium. 1878 US stops minting 20-cent coin 1865
US President Andrew Johnson offered $100'000 reward for the capture
of fugitive Confederate President Jefferson Davis.1863
South defeats North in Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia. Confederate
General Thomas Stonewall Jackson is accidentally wounded by
his own men; he would die eight days later.1863
Siege of Yorktown, Virginia continues.1863 Siege
of Suffolk, Virginia by Confederates continues.1813
Napoléon defeats a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen

^1803 That
Land Grab in Louisiana, actually signed.
During the early moments of the nineteenth century, the United States
government wheeled and dealed its way into what is generally regarded
as the "greatest land bargain" in the nation's history, the Louisiana
Purchase. The deal, which was
dated 30 April 1803, though it was in fact signed on 02 May,
had been in the works since the spring of 1802. It was then that President
Thomas Jefferson had learned of Spain's decision to quietly transfer
Spanish Louisiana to the French; fearful of the strategic and commercial
implications of the Spanish swap, Jefferson ordered Robert Livingston,
the US minister in Paris, to broker a deal with the French either
for a slice of land on the lower Mississippi or a "guarantee" of unmolested
transport for US ships. Negotiations
dragged on for months, but took a crucial turn when Spanish and US
trade relations collapsed in the fall of 1802. With Spain now barring
American merchant ships from transferring goods at the port in New
Orleans, Jefferson set his sights on purchasing a far larger chunk
of land. In early 1803, James Monroe headed to Paris to broker Jefferson's
deal. With France teetering on the brink of war with Great Britain,
and mindful not only of the fiscal repercussions of such a conflict,
but of the possibility of a renewed US-English alliance, Napoléon's
negotiators acceded to a deal to sell the whole of Louisiana.
All told, the Louisiana Purchase cost
the US $15 million: $11.25 million was earmarked for the land deal,
while the remaining $3.75 million covered France's outstanding debts
to America. Thus, for the prime price of 5 cents a hectare, the United
States bought 2'145'000 square kilometers of land, which effectively
doubled the size of the young nation

1798 Black General Toussaint L’Ouverture forces British
troops to agree to evacuate the port of Santo Domingo.1789
En France, les milles députés aux Etats Généraux (qui vont
s'ouvrir le 5 mai), des trois ordres, sont reçus à Versailles par le Roi
Louis XV 1780 William Herschel discovers first
binary star, Xi Ursae Majoris1776 France and Spain
agree to donate arms to the American rebels fighting the British.1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ends War of Devolution1507 Two years after entering the Augustinian monastery
at Erfurt, future German reformer Martin Luther, 23, is ordained a priest.
(Luther remained in the order until 1521, when he was excommunicated from
the Catholic Church.)

2006 A suicide car bomber an Azatullah, a civilian passer-by,
near a coalition military convoy (which suffers no casualty) north of Kabul,
Afghanistan. — (060507). 2005 Some 30 persons,
in the early hours, by the explosion of explosives hidden under the house
of Jalal Bajgaye, devastating much of the village Bashgah (or Pajga), Baghlan
province, Afghanistan. Some 70 persons are injured. Jalal Bajgaye (or Bashgah)
is a former government militia commander (= warlord); he and his immediate
family live elsewhere, but many of the casualties are his relatives.2004 Israelis Tali Hatuel, 34, her child due to be born in one month,
her daughters Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2; and Palestinians
Ibrahim Hamed and Faisal Abuntera, of the Islamic Jihad and Popular
Resistance Committees, who are shot by Israeli troops after they shoot at
13:00 (10:00 UT) the Hatuels in their car as they were approaching the Kissufim
crossing point into Israel from the Gaza Strip side, where they were residents
in the Gush Katf block of enclave settlements. An Israeli civilian and two
soldiers are wounded. The Hatuels were on their way into Israel to campaign
against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan of withdrawal from Gaza, on which
his Likud party is holding an internal referendum this day; a bumper sticker
on the Hatuels car reads: “Uprooting the settlements, victory for
terror.”2003 James Miller, 43, British freelance
cameramen, after being shot in the neck by Israeli troops late in the night,
as he was filming Israeli armored bulldozers razing Palestinian houses near
the Egyptian border in the Rafah refugee camp, Gaza Strip. The Israelis
claim that they were firing back at the source of an anti-tank missile that
had been fired at them, and that “a cameraman who knowingly enters
a combat zone, especially at night, endangers himself.” But Abdel-Rahman
Abdullah, a freelance Palestinian journalist who was with Miller, tells
Reuters that there had been no firing at the Israelis and: “We got
close to the area and filmed, but we couldn't leave because a tank was around
100 meters from where we stood. ... We even called out to the Israeli troops
in their armored vehicles and could hear them talking inside” and
that, in the camera lights, “we were very visible to the troops, with
a white flag and ‘TV’ markings on our vests, but still the troops
opened fire, hitting James Miller.” Miller was making a documentary
on how Palestinian children are affected by violence.2003 Daniel
Bondeson, 53, after shooting himself in his home in New Sweden,
Maine. He was a member of the Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church, in which, on
27 April 2003, arsenic-laced coffee poisoned 16 members, one of which, Walter
Reid Morrill, 78, died of it on 28 April 2003.2003 Mohammed
Dib, Algerian novelist and poet born on 21 July 1920. He wrote
in French and is best known for his novel trilogy about rural Algeria in
the late 1930s: La Grande Maison (1952), L'Incendie (1954),
Le Métier à Tisser (1957).2003 The Old
Man of the Mountain, approximately 6000 years old, as his 12-meter-high
face crumbles on Mount Cannon, in Franconia State Park, New Hampshire, shrouded
by clouds throughout this day, so that his demise is only discovered the
next morning [below, right]. Created by glaciers, the profile [below,
left] became a symbol of New Hampshire. It appears on the state quarter
[below, center], license plates, state road signs, the logo of
an internet company, and countless souvenirs and tourist brochures. Millions
of tourists have traveled through Franconia Notch to view the profile, 400
meters above Interstate 93 about 100 km north of Concord. The state had
used cables and epoxy to try for years to delay the inevitable collapse
of the rock profile due to erosion and the natural freeze-and-thaw cycle.

^2002 William
Tutte, 84, English Canadian mathematician and code-breaker.
He dies of congestive heart failure
complicated by cancer of the spleen. A chemistry graduate student
at Cambridge, England, in 1941, Tutte was sent to the secret Bletchley
Park code-breaking operation working on the code produced by the German
Enigma encrypting machine. A
German radio operator had sent the same message twice, with only a
few changes. Examining it for four months, Tutte saw patterns from
which he deduced that the machine must have a wheel of 41 sprockets
connected to a second wheel of 31 sprockets. Together with other code-breakers,
he figured out the structure of all 12 wheels of the encoding machine,
without ever seeing the original German device. After
the war Tutte returned to Cambridge and switched to mathematics. He
and several friends tackled the unsolved problem of dividing a square
into smaller squares no two were the same size. They showed that it
is possible, and that the problem was equivalent to calculating the
electrical resistance in a network of circuits. Tutte
received his doctorate in 1948. His thesis united combinatorics with
algebra into a new field of study called matroid theory. For
three decades Tutte was the leading mathematician in combinatorics.
One practical reason for the interest in combinatorics is the graph
theory, in which graphs can serve as abstract models for many different
kinds of relations among sets of objects. With the development of
computer technology, graph theory has found uses in chemistry, physics,
demographics, economics and other fields. An example of graph theory
is the four-color map problem. When mathematicians definitively proved
in the 1970's that four colors are enough for any map to avoid two
touching colors, they used methods pioneered by Tutte and another
mathematician, Hassler
Whitney [23 March 1907 – 10 May 1989].

2002 Some 130 persons as some 1000 FARC (Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia) guerrillas attack some 500 AUC (Autodefensa
Unida de Colombia) paramilitaries in Vigia del Fuerte and Bojaya, Choco
province, and civilians are caught in between, including many who had sought
refuge in the church of Vigia del Fuerte, hit by FARC mortar fire. More
than a third of the dead are children. The Colombian army does not come
to the aid of the villagers, in fear of FARC ambushes.2002::
26 Maoist guerrillas killed in a gunbattle with the Nepalese army
in Lisne, Rolpa district, 300 km west of Katmandu.2002::
32 Maoist guerillas killed by Nepalese security forces in the village
Bhagal, 500 km west of Katmandu.2002 Fifteen farmers killed
by lightning while working in rice fields in pouring rain near
the towns of Brahmmanbaria, Sylhet and Sunamganj, 180 km northeast of Dhaka,
Bangladesh capital. Tropical storms since 27 March 2002, have killed
at least 44 others and left more than 5000 homeless in Bangladesh.2000 Christina Marie Riggs, former nurse, executed by injection
in Arkansas for smothering her two young children.1990 David
Rappaport, 38, 129-cm actor (wizard), shoots himself1982
Solomon
Bochner, Jewish Polish US mathematician, born on 20 August
1899.

^1972 John
Edgar Hoover, born on 01 Jan 1895.
End of an Era at the FBI  After nearly five decades as director
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover dies,
leaving the powerful government agency without the administrator largely
responsible for its existence and shape.[click on image for
24 Jul 1967 photo of J. Edgar Hoover >]
Educated as a lawyer and a librarian, Hoover joined the Department
of Justice in 1917, and within two years had become special assistant
to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer [04 May 1872 – 11
May 1936]. Deeply anti-radical in his ideology, Hoover came to
the forefront of federal law enforcement during the so-called "Red
Scare" of 1919 to 1920. The former librarian set up a card index system
listing every radical leader, organization, and publication in the
United States, and by 1921 had amassed some 450'000 files.
More than ten thousand suspected Communists were also arrested during
this period, although the vast majority of these people were briefly
questioned and then released. Although the attorney general was criticized
for abusing his authority during the so-called “Palmer Raids”
(02 Jan 1920), Hoover emerged unscathed, and on
10 May 1924, was appointed acting director of the Bureau
of Investigation, a branch of the Justice Department. During the 1920s,
with Congress’ approval, Director Hoover drastically restructured
and expanded the Bureau of Investigation. He built the corruption-ridden
agency into an efficient crime-fighting machine, establishing a centralized
fingerprint file, a crime laboratory, and a training school for agents.
In the 1930s, the Bureau of Investigation
launched a dramatic battle against the epidemic of organized crime
brought on by Prohibition. Notorious gangsters such as George "Machine
Gun" Kelly and John Dillinger met their ends looking down the barrels
of Bureau-issued guns, while others, like Louis "Lepke" Buchalter,
the elusive head of Murder, Incorporated, were successfully investigated
and prosecuted by Hoover’s "G-men." Hoover, who had a keen eye for
public relations, participated himself in a number of these widely
publicized arrests, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, as it
was known after 1935, was highly regarded by Congress and the US public.
With the outbreak of World War II,
Hoover revived his anti-espionage techniques developed during the
first Red Scare, and domestic wiretaps and other electronic surveillance
expanded dramatically. After World War II, Hoover focused on the threat
of radical, especially Communist, subversion. The FBI compiled files
on millions of US citizens suspected of dissident activity, and Hoover
worked closely with the House Un-American Activities Committee and
Senator Joseph McCarthy [14 Nov 1908 – 02
May 1957], the infamous architect of the US’s second Red Scare.
In 1956, Hoover initiated COINTELPRO,
a secret counter-intelligence program that initially targeted the
US Communist Party but later was expanded to infiltrate and disrupt
any radical organization in America. During the 1960s, the immense
resources of COINTELPRO were used against dangerous groups such as
the Ku Klux Klan, but also against Black civil rights organizations
and liberal anti-war organizations.
One figure especially targeted was civil rights leader Martin Luther
King, Jr. [15 Jan 1929 – 04 Apr 1968], who endured systematic
harassment from the FBI, including the leaking of sensitive information
gathered by the FBI to his enemies in Memphis, Tennessee, and elsewhere.
By the time Hoover entered service
under his eighth president in 1969, the media, the public, and Congress
had uncovered evidence of the FBI’s abuses of authority. For the first
time in his bureaucratic career, Hoover endured widespread criticism
and Congress responded by passing laws requiring Senate confirmation
of future FBI directors and limiting their tenure to ten years.
On 02 May 1972, with the Watergate
affair about to explode on to the national stage, J. Edgar Hoover
dies of heart disease. The Watergate affair revealed that the FBI
had illegally protected President Richard Nixon [09 Jan 1913 –
22 April 1994] from investigation, and the agency was thoroughly investigated
by Congress. Revelations of the FBI’s abuses of power and unconstitutional
surveillance motivated Congress and the media to become more vigilant
in future monitoring the FBI. One of the books exposing abuses by
J. Edgar Hoover's FBI is The F.B.I. Nobody Knows (1964) by
Fred
J. Cook [1911 – 04 Apr 2003]

^1957 Joseph
McCarthy, 48, of alcoholism, Red Scare demagogue US
senator. At Bethesda Naval Hospital
in Maryland, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) succumbs to illness
exacerbated by alcoholism. McCarthy had been a key figure in the anticommunist
hysteria popularly known as the "Red Scare" that engulfed the United
States in the years following World War II. McCarthy was born in a
small town in Wisconsin on 14 November 1908. In 1942, he joined the
Marines and served in the Pacific during World War II. He returned
home in 1944 and decided to start a career in politics. In that year,
he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the US Senate. Undaunted, in 1946
McCarthy challenged the popular Senator Robert LaFollette in the Republican
primary. Utilizing the aggressive attacking style that would later
make him famous, McCarthy upset the over-confident LaFollette and
won the general election to become. on 03 January 1947, the junior
senator from Wisconsin. McCarthy's
early career in the Senate was unremarkable, to say the least. In
1950, desperate for an issue he could use to bolster his chances for
re-election, McCarthy took some of his advisors' suggestion and turned
to the issue of Communists in the United States. Although he knew
few details about the subject, McCarthy quickly embraced the issue.
He used his position as chairman of the Committee on Government Operations
and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to launch investigations
charging of that the US government was infiltrated by Communists.
In February 1950 he stunned an audience
with the declaration that there were over 200 "known Communists" in
the Department of State. Over the next four years, McCarthy became
the most famous (and feared) "Red-hunter" in the United States. Combining
a flair for the dramatic with a penchant for wild and reckless charges,
McCarthy was soon ruining careers, cowing opponents into silence,
and titillating the US public with his accusations of Communism.
In all of the hysteria, however, few
noticed that McCarthy never uncovered a single Communist, in or out
of the US government. In 1954, with his political fortunes beginning
to ebb, McCarthy seriously overreached himself when he charged that
the US Army was "soft on Communists." In the famous televised Army-McCarthy
hearings of that year, the US public got a first-hand view of McCarthy's
bullying and recklessness. The hearings destroyed McCarthy's credibility
and he was censured by the Senate on 02 December 1954, for behavior
that was “contrary to senatorial traditions”.
Though he continued to hold office, this effectively ended his power
in the Senate. During the next few years, the senator turned increasingly
to alcohol to relieve his frustrations. In 1957, he was hospitalized,
suffering from numerous ailments all exacerbated by cirrhosis of the
liver. He died in Bethesda, Maryland, and was buried in his home state
of Wisconsin. After the statutory
50 years of secrecy, the US Senate releases, on 05 May 2003, the 5000
pages of executive session transcripts of the 161 hearings, with over
500 witnesses, during the 83rd Congress (1953-1954), chaired by Senator
McCarthy, posting them as S. Prt. 107-84 -- Executive Sessions
of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee
on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings 1953-54): Volume
1 TEXT5.1M
PDF2.4M —Volume 2 TEXT2.3M
PDF2.2M — Volume 3 TEXT2.4M
PDF2.2M — Volume 4 TEXT2.3M
PDF2.2M — Volume 5 TEXT1.5M
PDF1.5M During his two
years as chairman, Senator McCarthy conducted headline-grabbing inquiries
into allegations of Communist subversion and espionage in the U.S.
government and defense industries. He held hearings on possible Communist
infiltration of the Department of State, the Voice of America, the
U.S. Information Libraries, the Government Printing Office, and the
Army Signal Corps. His clash with the army culminated in the nationally
televised Army-McCarthy hearings. Senator McCarthy’s repeated badgering
of witnesses, exaggerated claims, and disregard of due process eventually
led to his December 1954 censure for conduct unbecoming a senator.
Executive sessions were held prior
to the public hearings. Although many of the witnesses later testified
in public sessions, some appeared only in the closed sessions. The
set contains testimony by such prominent witnesses as Aaron Copeland,
novelist Howard Fast, Dashiell Hammett, Langston Hughes, artist Rockwell
Kent, and journalist James Reston. Other witnesses were government
employees, labor organizers, and army officers.
As the transcripts reveal, Senator McCarthy was often the only senator
present at the executive session hearings. Interrogations were largely
conducted by McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, and by the subcommittee’s
unpaid “chief consultant,” G. David Schine. Interrogators probed the
witnesses on their beliefs, families, and past associations. Some
witnesses cooperated and some refused to testify, generally citing
the Fifth Amendment. Senator McCarthy frequently threatened witnesses
with prosecution for contempt, but all cases were either thrown out
of court or overturned on appeal. No one who appeared before McCarthy’s
subcommittee was imprisoned for anything related to their testimony.
However, many lost their jobs for declining to answer the subcommittee’s
questions. Following these hearings,
the Supreme Court considerably strengthened protection for the rights
of witnesses appearing before congressional committees. The Senate
and the Permanent Subcommittee also revised the rules of inquiry to
prevent a continuation of the abuses evident during Senator McCarthy’s
tenure.

^1936 Manuscript
of Conversations at Midnight burns
Edna St. Vincent Millay's work in progress,
Conversations at Midnight, is burned in a hotel fire on Sanibel
Island, Florida,. She recreated the work, which was published in 1937.
Millay had been a successful poet for more than a decade when the
manuscript burned. One of three daughters of a divorced nurse, Millay
learned independence and self-reliance early and infused those qualities
into her poetry. She began publishing poetry in high school. In 1912,
the year she turned 20, her poem "Renascance" appeared in a literary
review and drew the attention of a benefactor who made it possible
for Millay to attend Vassar. The year she graduated, in 1917, her
first volume of poetry, Renascence and Other Poems, appeared. Millay
moved to New York City, where she lived a hectic, glamorous life as
a writer and actress in Greenwich Village. One of the first women
to write openly and without shame about her lovers, Millay had numerous
affairs. In 1920, her famous poem "First Fig" set the tone for the
1920s, with its resounding lines, "My candle burns at both ends, it
will not last the night." Millay's fast-paced life took a toll. Exhausted,
she traveled to Europe and from 1921 to 1923 took a long rest. Meanwhile,
she married Dutch importer Jan Boissevan, who gave up his business
to devote himself to Millay. The couple moved to a farm in upstate
New York, where Millay continued to write verse and plays. That year,
she published The Harp Weaver and Other Poems, for which
she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. A passionate proponent
of civil liberties, she was arrested and jailed for supporting Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchists condemned to death for robbery
and murder. In the 1930s, she wrote anti-totalitarian poetry for newspapers,
as well as radio plays and speeches. She suffered a nervous breakdown
in 1944 and endured two years of writer's block afterward. She broke
down again after her husband's death, in 1949, and she died of a heart
attack a year later.

1919 Evelyn Pickering De Morgan, English Pre-Raphaelite
painter born on 30 August 1855  MORE
ON DE MORGAN AT ART 4 MAY
with links to images.1894 Stanislaw Polian Wolski,
Polish artist born on 08 April 1859.1887 Anton Doll,
German artist born on 03 Mar 1826.1886 Jérome Thompson,
US artist born on 30 January 1814.

^1821 Hester
Lynch Pozzi, also called (1763-1784) Harriet
Lynch Thrale, British writer and friend of Samuel
Johnson. She was born Hester
Lynch Salusbury on 16 January 1741 (she mistakenly celebrated her
birthday on 27 January) into a Welsh land-owning family. In 1758 she
posed for The Lady's Last Stake (625x732pix, 47kb) by Hogarth
[10 Nov 1697 – 26 oct 1764]. [< click on image]
She married on 11 October 1763 a wealthy brewer and politician named
Henry Thrale (Member of Parliament 23 Dec 1765 – 13 Sep 1780)
and bore him 12 children. In January 1765 Samuel Johnson [18 Sep 1709
– 13 Dec 1784] was brought to dinner, and the next year, following
a severe illness, Johnson spent most of the summer in the country
with the Thrales. Gradually, he became part of the family circle,
living about half the time in their homes. A succession of distinguished
visitors came there to see Johnson and socialize with the Thrales.
Sir Joshua Reynolds painted the portraits of both Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.
On 04 April 1781 Henry Thrale died,
and his wife was left a wealthy widow. To everyone's dismay, she fell
in love with her daughter's music master, Gabriel Mario Piozzi, an
Italian singer and composer, married him in 1784, and set off for
Italy on a honeymoon. Dr. Johnson openly disapproved. The resulting
estrangement saddened his last months of life.
When news reached her of Johnson's death, she hastily compiled and
sent back to England copy for Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson,
LL.D., during the last Twenty Years of his Life (1786), which
thrust her into open rivalry with James Boswell [29 Oct 1740 –
19 May 1795]. The breach was further
widened when, after her return to England in 1787, she brought out
a two-volume edition of Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson,
LL.D. (1788). Although less accurate in some details than Boswell's,
her accounts show other aspects of Johnson's character, especially
the more human and affectionate side of his nature.
When many old friends remained aloof, Mrs. Piozzi drew around her
a new artistic circle, including the actress Sarah Siddons. Her pen
remained active, and thousands of her entertaining, gossipy letters
have survived. She retained to the end her unflagging vivacity and
zest for life. — Hester
Thrale Piozzi writings.

2004 Tuvalu Gorilla, at the Denver Zoo. Her mother and
father are from the Los Angeles Zoo and are temporarily in Denver while
their home habitat is being renovated.1949 James Byrd Jr.,
born with what would cause him, on 7 June 1998, to be chained to a pickup
truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas: his "black" skin.1945 Bianca Jagger, human rights activist.1936
Peter and the Wolf, a symphonic tale for children by Sergei
Prokofiev, has its world premiere in Moscow. 1935 Faisal
II King of Iraq.1921 Satyajit Ray, Bengali
motion-picture director, writer, and illustrator, who died on 23 April 1992.1912 Axel Springer, of Alex Springer Verlag AG publishing
house in Germany. He died on 22 September 1985.1904 Maurice
Estève, French painter, draftsman and lithographer. —
more
1903 Benjamin Spock, pediatrician / activist / author ( The Common
Sense Book of Baby and Child Care). He died on 15 March 1998.1902
Kazimierz
Zarankiewicz, Polish mathematician who died on 05 September
1959. He made contributions to topology, graph theory, complex functions,
and number theory 1892 Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen
[the Red Baron], German WW I ace. He died shot down on 21 April 1918.

^1881 (22 April Julian)
Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky, moderate socialist
revolutionary who served as head of the Russian provisional government
from July to 07 November 1917. He died on 11 June 1970.
Aleksandr Kerensky was born in Simbirsk, Russia, the son of Fyodor
Kerensky, who would be principal of a high school when Vladimir
Lenin [22 Apr 1870 – 21 Jan 1924] was one of its students.
While studying law at the University of Saint-Petersburg, Aleksandr
Kerensky was attracted to the Narodniki (or populist) revolutionary
movement. After graduating (1904), he joined the Socialist Revolutionary
Party (1905) and became a prominent lawyer, frequently defending revolutionaries
accused of political offenses. In 1912 he was elected to the fourth
Duma as a Trudovik (“Laborer”) delegate from Volsk (in
Saratov province), and in the next several years he gained a reputation
as an eloquent, dynamic politician of the moderate left.
Unlike some of the more radical socialists, he supported Russia's
participation in World War I. He became increasingly disappointed
with the tsarist regime's conduct of the war effort, however, and,
when the February Revolution broke out (1917), he urged the dissolution
of the monarchy. He enthusiastically accepted the posts of vice chairman
of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and of
minister of justice in the provisional government, formed by the Duma.
The only person to hold positions in both governing bodies, he assumed
the role of liaison between them. He instituted basic civil liberties
(e.g., the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and religion; universal
suffrage; and equal rights for women) throughout Russia and became
one of the most widely known and popular figures among the revolutionary
leadership. In May, when a public
uproar over the announcement of Russia's war aims (which Kerensky
had approved) forced several ministers to resign, Kerensky was transferred
to the posts of minister of war and of the navy and became the dominant
personality in the new government. He subsequently planned a new offensive
and toured the front, using his inspiring rhetoric to instill in the
demoralized troops a desire to renew their efforts and defend the
revolution. His eloquence, however, proved inadequate compensation
for war weariness and lack of military discipline. Kerensky's June
Offensive was an unmitigated failure.
When the provisional government was again compelled to reorganize
in July, Kerensky, who adhered to no rigid political dogma and whose
dramatic oratorical style appeared to win him broad popular support,
became prime minister. Despite his efforts to unite all political
factions, he soon alienated the moderates and the officers' corps
by summarily dismissing his commander in chief, General Lavr G. Kornilov,
and personally replacing him (September); he also lost the confidence
of the left wing by refusing to implement their radical social and
economic programs and by apparently planning to assume dictatorial
powers. Consequently, when the
Bolsheviks seized power on 08 November 1917, Kerensky, who escaped
to the front, was unable to gather forces to defend his government.
He remained in hiding until May 1918, when he emigrated to western
Europe and devoted himself to writing books on the revolution and
editing émigré newspapers and journals. In 1940 he moved
to the United States, where he lectured at universities and continued
to write books on his revolutionary experiences.

1879 James
F. Byrnes, born on 02 May 1879, US politician, US representative
(1911-1925) and senator (1931-1941) from South Carolina, Supreme Court
justice, Director of Economic Stabilization, Director of the Office of
War Mobilization, Secretary of State (1945-1947), Governor of South Carolina
(1951-1955). He died on 09 April 1972.1860 Theodor Herzl, Hungarian journalist; first president
of the World Zionist Organization. He died on 03 July 1904.1860 D'Arcy
Wentworth Thompson, Scotttish scholar of Greek, naturalist,
and mathematician (the first biomathematician), who died on 21 June 1948.

^1859 Jerome Klapka
Jerome, English novelist and playwright who
died on 14 June 1927. His warm, unsatirical, and unintellectual humor
won him wide following. Jerome
left school at the age of 14, working first as a railway clerk, then
as a schoolteacher, an actor, and a journalist. His first book, On
the Stage—and Off, was published in 1885, but it was with the
publication of his next books, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
(1886) and Three Men in a Boat (1889), that he achieved great
success; both books were widely translated. From 1892 to 1897 he was
a coeditor (with Robert Barr and George Brown Burgin) of The Idler,
a monthly magazine that he had helped found, which featured contributions
by writers such as Eden Phillpotts, Mark Twain, and Bret Harte. Jerome's
many other works include Three Men on the Bummel (1900) and
Paul Kelver (1902), an autobiographical novel. He also wrote
a number of plays. A book of Jerome's memoirs, My Life and Times,
was published in 1926.

1853 Antonio Maura, Spanish statesman; prime minister five
times between 1903 and 1922 He died on 13 December 1925.
1840 Theodor Herzl founded Zionist movement 1837
Henry Martyn Robert (US Army General; author: Robert's Rules
of Order, the standard for parliamentary procedure). He was adjourned
sine die on 11 May 1923, but his Rules live on.
1810 Leo XIII, 257th pope (1878-1903)1806 (1808?):
Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre, Swiss-born French Academic
painter specialized in portraits, who died in 1874. MORE
ON GLEYRE ART 4 MAY
with links to images.

^
1729 (21 Apr Julian) Sophie Friederike
Auguste prinzessin von Anhalt-Zerbst, future Catherine II (the Great). German-born empress of Russia
(1762-1796). She took the name Yekaterina Alekseevna (nothing to do
with her father's name) upon marrying on 21 August 1745 the heir
to the throne of Russia, a German grandson (born 21 Feb 1728,
10 Feb Julian) of Peter the Great, German-loving, Russian-hating
and Russian-hated, who became emperor Peter III upon the 05 Jan 1762
(25 Dec 1761 Julian) death of his aunt empress Elizabeth, daughter
of Peter the Great. Catherine,
who loved Russia and was loved in return, on 09 July (28 June Julian)
1762 led a coup (with the support of her lover at the time, Grigory
Grigoryevich Orlov [17 Oct 1734  24 Apr 1783, Gregorian
dates], and all sectors of Russian society) against her despised husband,
who abdicated the next day, was arrested, and was murdered on 18 July
(07 July Julian) 1762 while in the custody of Aleksey Grigoryevich
Orlov [Grigory's brother, 05 Oct 1737  05 Jan 1808,
Gregorian dates]. Catherine II
would continue what Peter the Great started in leading Russia into
a full participation in the political and cultural life of Europe.
With her ministers (especially Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin [24
Sep 1739  16 Oct 1791 Gregorian dates] who got his start
in 1774 by being her lover for a couple of years, in which role his
was followed by a succession of at least a dozen insignificant young
gigolos  the current one at her death being Platon Zubov, while
Potemkin continued as Catherine's partner in matters of state, famous
for the caricatural story of the Potemkin villages.) she
would reorganize the administration and law of the Russian Empire
and extend it into Crimea and much of Poland. Yekaterina Velikaya
died unexpectedly of a stroke on 17 November (06 Nov Julian) 1796.
 La future tsarine de Russie, Catherine II la Grande, nait à
Stettin, dans la famille d'un prince allemand. Elle sera baptisée
avec le prénom de Sophia Augusta.  Portraits of Catherine
the Great by: Antropov
(before she became empress)  Antropov
 Levitzky
 Johann
Baptist Lampi the Elder

^1670 Hudson’s Bay Company
is chartered.
King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson’s
Bay Company, a group of French explorers who opened the lucrative
North American fur trade to London merchants. The charter conferred
on them not only a trading monopoly but also effective control over
the vast region surrounding Hudson Bay. Although contested by other
English traders and the French in the region, the Hudson’s Bay Company
was highly successful in exploiting what would become eastern Canada.
During the nineteenth century, the
company gained an advantage over the French in the area, but was also
strongly criticized in Britain for its repeated failures to find a
northwest passage out of Hudson Bay.
After France’s loss of Canada at the end of the French and Indian
Wars, new competition developed with the establishment of the North
West Company by Montreal merchants and Scottish traders. As both companies
attempted to dominate fur potentials in central and western Canada,
violence sometimes erupted, and in 1821, the two companies were amalgamated
under the name of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The united company ruled
a vast territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and under
the governorship of Sir George Simpson from 1821 to 1856, reached
the peak of its fortunes. After
Canada was granted dominion status in 1867, the company lost its monopoly
on the fur trade, but, because it had diversified its business ventures,
it remained Canada’s largest corporation through the 1920s.

1660 Alessandro Scarlatti, Palermo, Italy, composer (Tigrane).
He died on 24 October 1725.

1601 Athanasius Kircher,
in Thuringia, German Jesuit who died on 27 November 1680 in Rome, the
last Renaissance man and/or the first Postmodernist. Amazing.
 MORE ON KIRCHER.

1588 Étienne
Pascal, French lawyer, government official, mathematician,
who died on 24 September 1651. He discovered the curve Limaçon de
Pascal, which can be used to trisect an angle; its Cartesian equation is
(x² + y² - 2ax)² = b²(x² + y²), and its polar
equation is r = b + 2a cos(q) [diagram >].
He was the father of Blaise
Pascal [19 Jun 1623 – 19 Aug 1662].

Thoughts for the day:Deprive a mirror of its
silver and even the Czar won`t see his face.(02
May 1949: US missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal:)The man who will not act until he knows all will
never act at all.
You can't make nothing out of something, but you can make it go somewhere
else.
"Even a liar tells a hundred truths to one lie; he has to, to make the lie
good for anything."  Henry Ward Beecher, US clergyman
[1813-1887]. {so much for logic puzzles about truth-tellers who never tell
a lie, and liars who always do}“I like work;
it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
— Jerome K. Jerome [02 May 1859 – 14 Jun
1927]